the girl in the hurricane
by thewildthingsarecoming
Summary: -all they really are, are co-conspirators in a great game of how far can we run and hide and never get caught.- MollyII-centric


the girl in a hurricane.

Disclaimer: Anything that you recognise does not belong to me.

* * *

They always assumed it would be Lily – flame-haired, sparky Lily who's always teetering on the edge of being half here, half not.

Except it isn't.

It's Molly, with her quiet, biting sarcasm and somewhat unreachable, Ravenclaw heart. It takes one day out of hundreds, where the world is pressing in all around, and Lysander is gone, and Lucy's just aglow (because she's Lucy and she and Lorcan are how MollyandLysander once were), for her to write to Uncle Charlie and beg him to let her come and stay with him.

The reply comes within days saying 'yes, do come', because out of everyone, Charlie understands the need to escape and breathe and just _be_ for a while. Molly's bag is already packed, and leaving a letter for her family, she apparates to Romania. The promise of freedom left in her wake.

**breathe**

Unsurprisingly no one misses her – all of them too preoccupied with jobs and family and lives to care about insignificant little Molly. Her parents write once, let her know how well Lucy's doing modelling for Victoire's fashion magazine, and then she's on her own.

Just her, and the too bright sunshine, and the dragons that breathe rubies and hoard fire.

**breathe**

It's different at first, and it takes time to grow out of the person that living in the wake of so much greatness has caused her to become. She's quiet around people and she never purposefully excels at anything and when Charlie sees her looking so lost around the enclosure he wonders if maybe she splinched part of her soul when she came.

It isn't until he sees her with the dragons, alive and bright and loving, that he thinks he understands maybe a little why she needed to get away.

**breathe**

"Uncle Charlie!" she calls after him one day. She's been there maybe a month, and when she rolls to a halt in front of him breathless, pale face flushed and hair a mess behind her, he wonders when she caught the dragon-fever.

"What's up Molly?" he asks cheerfully, running a hand through his Weasley-red hair.

"The dragon, the Hebridean Black, when did it get here?" Charlie considers the beast she's asking about, remembers the damage it had done to the handlers who had brought it in, and the way it had almost destroyed the enclosure.

"A week or two ago, but I need you to stay away from it Molly, it's dangerous," he says firmly and he watches her face fall.

"But – but," she starts indignation colouring her voice in a way it hasn't since she was so much younger.

"No buts. The dragons may look beautiful, but they're a bigger threat than you can even imagine," he's trying to be gentle but Charlie can see the way her hackles are raising.

"Uncle Charlie, I'm not afraid, I can help, I can handle it, just show me what to do. Please I can –"

"I said no Molly, you're too young and you have no idea what you're doing. There are other people who are better equipped to handle creatures like this one."

Molly looks at him, eyes wide and face still like he's slapped her, because she's heard those words so many times. From her parents, from her teachers and she can't help but turn and apparate away.

In the silence following her departure, Charlie can't help but notice the dragon-hide gloves that she had been wearing laying on the floor. It takes a skilled witch or wizard years to learn how to apparate and leave things that you have on you behind on purpose.

Molly is eighteen years old, and for the first time he feels like he may have underestimated her.

**breathe**

A week or so later, Charlie and some of the other handlers are struggling to control a young female who has just given birth. In the struggle one of her eggs has rolled from the nest and amidst the stunning spells and the fire, there's no room for any of the handlers to retrieve it. As the female lashes out again, setting fire to the robes of two of the reserve workers, Charlie catches a flash of red amongst the chaos.

The dragon sweeps its tail across the scorched earth, and Charlie hits the floor like dead weight. He can hear his friends and co-workers screaming for him to get up as they hurriedly renew their spells, but he can't move for the dizziness in his head. The female opens its mouth, teeth glistening in the firelight, and Charlie can't think except for 'Merlin, let me live'. The fire is bubbling in the dragon's throat when he hears movement behind him and Molly appears, covered in ash and clothes smouldering but with the dragon egg in hand. She holds it out, and in a display Charlie has never seen before the female snatches the egg before pushing her to the ground and returning to the nest.

Before he can properly catch his breath, Molly is beside him lip bleeding profusely and offering him a hand. She smiles slightly at him and it's like something breaks between them as she pulls him up.

"That was reckless and stupid and god, you're supposed to be a Ravenclaw Molly," he shouts at her, because Merlin, he almost died and she is the only reason he is still breathing and he isn't quite sure how to be that grateful.

"Yeah, well," she replies eyes bright and smile wide like he hasn't seen in years as she walks away, "the Hat didn't try to put me in Gryffindor for nothing."

**breathe**

One day in August, when the sky is clear and the North Star is all she can focus on, Molly explains to Charlie the politics of home. How the Potters think they have it bad, but in actuality living in the shadow of those trying to break free of it is so, so much worse. She tells him how her parents prefer Lucy to her because she's such a star and everything just seems so effortless when her sister does it. How no one cares, but she wants to study English, be a writer, and blur the line down the two worlds. Then she talks about Lysander until the moon starts to wane. She tells him how she was in love with him and he made her feel like maybe someone really could love her too. Then how he broke her heart, and then broke it some more as she picked up the pieces and made _her_ feel like she had torn _him_ apart. She whispers quietly about how he never really cared, and how then, when they were so close to being something almost like a shadow of how they were, he shattered everything all over again.

Most importantly though, she tells Charlie that she doesn't regret what happened, she'll never regret it because it made her realise that fairytale love doesn't exist, and sometimes you are the only person who can save yourself.

In the starlight, her fears are almost anonymous, the tear tracks down her face unimportant and when she looks at Charlie who has sat and listened to everything.

For the first time she recognises in him the scars of a person who fought the loneliness with passion, and won.

**breathe**

Charlie arrives at the field to see Molly spelling fences and strengthening them with charms, sweat beading on her forehead from the summer-hot sun and hair flashing like firelight.

"Molly," he calls to her and she turns, brushing the hair from her face and absentmindedly putting her wand into her back pocket.

"Hey Charlie, what's up?"

He doesn't answer, just holds out the heavy parchment envelope and god, he can _see_ the exact moment when the breath steals from her lungs. This is something that they've been avoiding addressing since she arrived, except now the envelope has wound its way to Romania and there's no where left to hide. She takes it with trembling fingers, and Charlie can hear the parchment rustle as Molly looks at the culmination of seven years of learning, and pressure and never being good enough.

There's a beat, and then another and they stretch into nothing and Charlie can remember getting his own results and how his parents were so excited, no matter how well he did. Now though, he can feel the tension and it's a physical hurt to realise even now, a thousand miles from England, there is a part of Molly that cannot bear to let her father down. There is a part of Molly that believes with everything she is that being good, being great even, it will never be enough.

She sighs and it breaks the tension and Charlie watches the straight line of her shoulders relax until she turns back to look at him, the small smile playing on her lip doing nothing to hide the _something_ in her eyes. Charlie doesn't ask, he doesn't need to. So he busies himself with feeding the dragons as Molly replaces her wand with her results. She breathes in the dry, summer air and turns back to her task, putting herself back together and reinforcing the enclosures for the creatures who will always breathe fire and live freedom.

**breathe**

He 'finds' the parchment later that evening when Molly has succumbed to sleep and the sun is far beneath the horizon. The page is a blur of Outstandings broken by a single Exceed Expectations and in that moment, Charlie_ finally_ understands just how much she needed to escape.

**breathe**

When she apparated to Romania, Molly's intention had only been to stay the summer, just long enough to learn to see through the shadows again. The days blur together though, until they're passing faster than she would ever have imagined. Dragon fever blazing away the aches and the pain of minor burns she refuses to have magically healed, as Charlie teaches her how to look after the dragons, how to feed and handle them.

Molly gets closer every day, the peril of these creatures lost in their stunning magnificence.

Then the night before she's due home, she sneaks out of the cabin she's been living in, and out to the dragon field. The stars are bright overhead as she slips barefoot into the pen, the dozing Hebridean Black blinking lazily at her presence. Tiptoeing softly closer Molly smiles as the creature stands up, calm as it snarls and snorts fire at her. She steps closer, blue eyes focused on yellow and she pauses only when the dragon rears.

The melody is quiet at first, quiet but haunting as it rises in her throat. Building slowly louder until the icehot silk of scales caresses her fingertips.

Voices rise behind her, her name somewhere in the mess of words she's sure, but they're lost as she pulls herself onto the back of the dragon. Then before they can do anything she's soaring higher than the shadows themselves.

**breathe**

They land much later – girl and dragon – and Charlie and the other handlers watch in awe as Molly slides to the ground. Hands and feet bleeding and ice cold, but eyes so full of dragon fire that Charlie has to wonder if what they teach at Hogwarts is really magic at all.

**break**

When she wakes up in the morning, she leaves her packed bags by the door and doesn't look back.

**one**

A year she stays in the end – a glorious year of chasing, and searching, and learning, and never having anyone to live up to because Molly, well she's good at this. Better than anyone else there's ever been, and she'd stay forever, oh god how she'd stay forever if she could, but she can't. Because every time she looks at Uncle Charlie, see can see that whilst they're playing at being dragon tamers. All they really are, are co-conspirators in a great game of how far can we run and hide and never get caught.

**two**

Charlie finds her one day, when she's laying in the middle of the reservation, hair a mess over the fire scarred earth. She opens her eyes when his shadow falls over her face, cool blue eyes blinking away the dust that rises as he sits beside her.

"Why are you here Molly?" he asks eventually, gaze settled on the far off horizon as she ponders the question. She's explained to him already about her dreams, her heartbreak, the way she's nothing more than a shadow at home.

She frowns slightly and he can see from the corner of his eye that she looks pointedly away, "Because I needed to run, to get away from them all, and where's a better place to run to than Romania?"

He tilts his head slightly and looks at her, contemplating her answer, "Okay, but now what?"

"What do you mean?" she replies in confusion, fingers lacing behind her head.

"Well, you can't stay here forever," Charlie tells her gently, "so what are you going to do next?"

Molly sits up, dust-laced hair falling down her back and face thoughtful like he's just asked her one of the most difficult questions in the world.

"Why can't I just stay here?"

When he catches her eye, he has that look that one has when speaking to a child, "Because Molly, we can't both run away to Romania now can we?"

Molly's never asked Charlie his exact reasons for staying permanently in Romania. Of course she knows that he is in love with the dragons, his passion for them is evident in the very air that he breathes, but sometimes when she's sees him and he thinks no one is paying him any attention, there's this look of desolation in his eyes. Like he's made the worst mistake of his life and there'll never be a way to fix it. Or some days, he gives off the air that even though he's left his family behind and everything he used to know, he's still not run far enough away from whatever haunts him.

"I don't know then Charlie, I don't know what to do."

"Well," he says thoughtfully, "if you could do anything, anything in the whole world, what would you do? What would you choose to do."

She sits there for a long while, feet nudging the dry earth into rough piles, as she absentmindedly runs her fingers through the tangles of her hair, and Charlie wonders if maybe it's too big a question.

" I'd apply to a muggle University. Somewhere old and prestigious like Oxford, just to prove that I could. I'd read English or History or Politics, maybe all three if I can. Who knows, I'd try and do everything."

Her honesty stills him, and as she talks, her eyes wide and shiny bright at the prospect of a truly golden future, he thinks maybe Molly will turn out to be the best of them all.

"Then why don't you?" he asks when she pauses for a moment, lost in thoughts of what could be.

She looks at him perplexed, blue eyes wide with confusion, "Why don't I what?"

"Study, live, do what you want."

"I – I can't, I just I – ..." she stutters helplessly.

"Of course you can," he tells her firmly, pressing a kiss to her forehead as he stands, "you've earned this".

**four.**

They finally get her about seven and a half months after she's been there. The handlers cheer and Molly curses like a soldier as her hands blister and ooze and they hurt (like hell) but the dragon she's helping give birth needs her. The eggs will die if she stops, so she carries on regardless, gritting her teeth against the pain.

It's only later when she refuses to let the handlers heal her that Charlie looks at her concerned.

" Molly, come on," he tells her, "don't be stupid".

"Charlie," she berates him, teeth clenched and brow furrowed, "I don't care what you say, I'm not having it healed".

"You're not impressing anyone, you know" he snaps, shoulders tense as she flinches at another wave of pain.

"Oh great, and here I was thinking I'd succeeded in my primary objective".

He sinks into the chair next to her, face a mess of exasperation, fear and maybe a hint of admiration.

"Why?" His voice is weary, all the life drained out of him and Molly refuses to look at him when she answers. She doesn't tell him that a tiny part of her remembers how much it hurt to love Lysander and how she can't help but feel that this burn is so much better, so she tells him the rest of the truth.

"Because...because I want to remember this. I want to be able to look down and see the scars and think I survived that. I'm stronger than everyone else seems to think."

When Charlie glances at her face, her eyes are on fire, and she's so close to being his reflection when he was her age, and not for the first time Charlie wonders at how much it must have taken to make this girl run. When he pulls out his wand, she glares a bit more, ready for a fight.

"Molly, I get where you're coming from, really I do, but if you don't let me do something then you risk losing your hands. I won't heal them completely, but if you don't do this, you'll probably never write again," he admits softly and it's then that he knows she'll compromise, because he can see the fear flicker through her eyes. After a beat her shoulders drop and there's nothing left but a little girl play-pretending that it doesn't hurt.

**five**

Her hands heal with time, and the skin is shiny and pearlescent from the healing magic Charlie had poured into the hurt. When she flexes her fingers she can feel a minuscule tightness of the flesh and though there's no pain, it acts as a constant reminder.

There's no loss of flexibility or impairment of her sense of touch, aside from the pull it's as if nothing ever happened. Except now, when she closes her fingers over the smooth wood of her wand she can feel the hum of the dragon heartstring calling to the fire in her blood and the ash on her skin.

It feels like magic, and freedom and finally being alive.

**six **

There are some days, and they're few and far between in their dragon-scape piece of life, when his eyes look so far away and his face looks so old and there is a feeling about him that is indescribable (but only to someone who has never felt broken in half).

"Who was she?" she asks one day, and he looks at her like he doesn't understand. "The girl – the one you loved. Who was she?"

Charlie looks at her soundly, eyes wary and heart closing up brick by brick.

"She was no one," he tells her, each word careful like it's been thoroughly worked over.

Molly doesn't ask again.

**seven**

There's a phone ringing monotonously in the room next door to them and the air is sticky and warm, but every time Molly even looks towards the dragons waiting just beyond the window, Charlie gives her this pointed look and she turns back at the screen.

The words take a while to come out, held back by fear and anxiety, but eventually they start to flow and after days pass she finishes, and Molly swears she can feel the smile on Charlie's face. In moments like those, she can't help but think that this and dragons, this is what she was born to do.

He looks over her shoulder as she finally presses the send button, the cool night-time relief juxtaposed with her feverish excitement. There's a knot of dread in her stomach, but it's not enough to quell the nervous frisson, because this, this is it. There's only one way up from here.

**eight**

"Fleur" he says one day, eyes an imperfect picture of haunted devastation and a smile curving fondly at the corner of his mouth. "She was so perfect, like a star or something, and we were just, we were going to be absolutely amazing together."

Molly says nothing, just waits and listens.

"And then there was Bill, and the way we were tearing her apart and I just – I loved her so much that I just couldn't bear to make her choose. So I left."

It's then that Molly finally sees Charlie for what he is. Not the dragon-chaser. Or the Weasley so full of freedom that he followed it to Romania. No, Charlie is a boy so full of running and chasing and _loving,_ that he has nothing else. He may have come to the dragons of his own volition to begin with, but now at least there's a part of him that is in self-imposed exile.

He loved her, oh how he loved her.

Molly can see it in his glassy eyes and quiet voice, and she wonders at how much you have to love a person to leave them to be in love with someone else.

They're silent together as the sun sinks slowly behind the dragon enclosures like a myriad spells exploding across the horizon.

"Do you regret it?" she asks quietly, gaze not quite on him.

"Every day," he answers and Molly has so many questions, so many wonders. So she asks him the most important one.

"Would you do it differently, if you could go back?"

He looks at her properly, and he seems so real in the fading light, "Never."

**nine**

She finds the reply completely by accident.

The days have been blurring together since she first sent the application and what little time she doesn't spend out on the reservation is very rarely spent anywhere near the little computer. However Charlie's been on her case to please get some new recipes for dinner because he's sick of having lasagne every Tuesday and Friday night and she's offhandedly opened her email when she sees it.

The reply is sitting in her inbox, and the fire in her belly goes out in a flash. Trembling fingers click on the title and all she'll remember seeing for as long as she lives is the word 'Congratulations' and nothing else.

Molly doesn't know when Charlie arrives, and she doesn't hear the words he's saying or the way he's smiling like the man he must have been before Romania, before Fleur. All easiness and laughter and unforgettable gold.

She just sits there, heart stopped and lung empty and thinks,

'Oh Merlin, I did it'.

**ten **

The airport is clean and plain and simply dull compared to the Dragon Reservations and she can't help but marvel at the mundanity of it all (she could've apparated but there's something almost evolutionary about going home so purposefully).

For having been there a year, she's still leaving with the same suitcase, the same clothes (though perhaps they're slightly more weather worn than they were before) and there are no small trinkets or cheap baubles - in fact, there's nothing particularly sentimental in her luggage. Molly has always been an accumulator of material things, physical reminders of her life and memories and everything that has already come to pass. Now though, instead of any of these, she's leaving with scars on her skin and lessons in her heart that she could never, _never_ have received from anywhere else in the world, and more than anything else she could have hoped to gain, they are priceless.

"Don't forget us," Charlie jokes as they stand outside customs, tan skin and dragon-beaten clothes out of place in their surroundings.

Molly looks at him, hair braided messily over one tanned shoulder, and Charlie doesn't have time to breathe before she's hugging him tightly.

"No one forgets their home Charlie; no one forgets their real family," she says it like it's a promise, and Charlie doesn't believe it to be anything but.

"Thank you for everything," she smiles at him as she pulls away, hand reaching to readjust her backpack and only a little bit to feel the familiar pull in the flesh of her hand. Then she turns to walk through customs, the smell of vast open spaces and summer sunshine in her wake.

"Don't be a stranger," he calls after her retreating figure, voice warm and smooth as it chases her down.

She doesn't reply, but they both know even wild dragons couldn't keep her away.

**eleven**

The muggle plane is slow and cumbersome compared to the sleek danger of the dragons, but Molly is calm in the metal beast. Time slowing down like it hasn't since she left England and she relishes it. She's made a point of not telling anyone that she's home, so when she sees Lily waiting in arrivals she almost slightly confused. Her younger cousin looks at her appraisingly. Green eyes taking in the changes in her appearance and she smiles.

"Molly," she says in greeting, an easiness in her that hasn't been evident since she was younger, "long time no see".

Molly arches an eyebrow, the new white scar running through the little copper hairs one of oh so many she has accumulated over the past year, "Go figure".

Lily smiles, unperturbed at Molly's unaffectedness, and continues, "How's Uncle Charlie?"

"He's really brilliant," she answers grabbing her bag from the luggage rack, face coming alive in a way that Lily's never seen before.

They walk through the airport, wild tangles of copper curling out behind them as they chat about nonsense, Lily informing Molly of everything that she's missed since she's been gone, all the while marvelling at this newfound freeness of her cousin.

"And Lysander?" Molly asks as Lily pauses to draw breath. Her cousin looks at her carefully before replying, unsure how Molly will take whatever she has to say.

"Oh, he's training for the Olympics," words continuing quickly as she sees the small crease forming between Molly's eyebrows, "couple of months after you left some scout spotted him at the pool. Asked him if he wanted to try out for a team. Turns out, the guy is the head coach for the British Olympic Swimming Team, so now Ly's training for the games."

Molly turns this information over in her head as they reach the car, Lily's keys jangling between her fingers as they slide in.

"When did you learn to drive?" she asks suddenly and as Lily explains how she begged her father to let her learn, any stray thoughts of Lysander drift away to the dark of her mind.

**twelve**

"So where are we headed to anyway?" Lily queries, eyes on the road as her fingers subconsciously tap on the steering wheel, "Home?"

Molly looks at her warily from beneath her lashes, "Yes, let's go home".

**thirteen**

Her father's sitting at the kitchen table, Prophet in hand, when she walks through the door and she's drinking a cup of tea before he even turns to look at her. Over the rim of the mug she wonders at the emotions that flicker through his eyes; delight, reluctance, weariness.

"Molly, you're back at last," he says eventually, eyes skimming her appearance as she leans against the doorframe, "I trust you had an enjoyable time?"

She wants to tell him about the dragons. How their scales gleam a hundred different colours in the sunlight. Or how it feels to soar through the sky by means far more dangerous than a broomstick and with no discernible equal in existence. She wants to tell him, how she's grown, what she's learnt about herself. How living, working, breathing at the reservation has made her feel like she's finally accomplished something with her life. How Romania has let her finally taste freedom.

The glint of the artificial light of the kitchen bulb off of his glasses stills the words in her throat however, and instead she answers him far more succinctly.

"Yeah Dad, it was great. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with Uncle Charlie and see the dragons."

"Yes, I can imagine," he replies tonelessly, eyebrow arching in a mixture of feigned interest and distaste.

There's quiet between them again, and Molly can see the topic of her future growing between them like an ugly flower, blooming much too early for her taste.

"How's Mum?" she ventures, a useless attempt to put off the inevitable.

"Oh she's fine, busy at work and the like," he says almost absentmindedly as he folds the paper in half and adjusts himself in his seat until he's looking at her dead on, and Molly feels her stomach drop to the balls of her feet. "Anyway, we have far more important things to discuss."

Percy, steeples his fingers underneath his chin as he considers his words, "I understand that you've taken time out to enjoy the company of your Uncle and the sights of Romania and that's fair enough. You've worked hard these past years at Hogwarts, and a respite was clearly welcome."

Molly listens to him as he praises, but can't help but feel the sting of the words left unsaid (_you could have worked harder, if you'd been better you wouldn't have needed to go to Romania, you wouldn't have needed to runaway and waste an entire year playing dragon tamers with my wild older brother_).

"Nevertheless, you're far too old for this now Molly, and the time has come to enter the real world. I've accepted a position in the ministry on your behalf, you'll be working alongside me in the Department of Magical Transportation, just like we always talked about."

Molly is speechless. She knew coming home would be like this, she had expected her father's unspoken comments about her time away, about the work she could have been doing instead. She'd even been prepared for Percy to tell her that he had interviews lined up, one for every department of the Ministry and then some. What she hadn't steeled herself for, was the possibility that he wouldn't even give her the choice. That he would have decided this huge, important part of her life for her, as if her future in her own hands was a thing of undeterminable danger.

"Dad – I, what, how?"

Percy smiles pleasantly, like this is the best news he's ever had the opportunity to deliver, "I know, it's quite exciting. This is the chance of a lifetime, you'll be working alongside the best witches and wizards of our time doing something truly important."

Molly is speechless, mouth open and no words even prepared to slip out and in the absence of a response Percy babbles on. Telling her how wonderful this is, what exactly will be expected of her – "of course you won't be able to talk about those ridiculous dragons" – and so and so forth. He's so caught up in his starry-eyed one-sided discussion that he doesn't even notice the moment when Molly finally recollects herself.

"No Dad."

She says it quietly at first, then again, louder with more conviction until Percy pauses and looks at her bewildered.

"Excuse me? Molly I really think you're-"

"Dad," she says cutting him off, "I said no. I don't want to work at the ministry. I want to learn, study, before I even consider getting a job."

"Enough. I don't know where all this is coming from but-"

"Are you even listening to me?" she cries in exasperation, "Dad, I applied to Oxford, the muggle University. One of the most prestigious universities in the whole of Britain, and I got accepted. I got in, and – and I'm going Dad, all I want to do is learn."

"Molly, what is wrong with you? I just said I accepted a position for you at the Ministry. They're all clamouring to hire you, St Mungo's, the Ministry, even Gringotts! This is what we've always wanted!" he tells her heatedly, ears beginning to flush a brilliant shade of red.

"Dad. I don't care. I don't want to go. I've never wanted to work there. This is all you. All _you_. This is what _you_ want," she tells him, eyes flashing and voice strong, because this is something that she's been dreaming of all her life and now that it's finally close enough that she can practically hold it in her hands. Well, it's too damn late for anyone to decide she can't have it now.

"Molly," he tries, voice strained like he's throwing all of his patience into keeping his tone a step away from shouting, "I understand you're tired, you've had a long flight home. Maybe if you sleep on it, you'll understand how amazing this is in the morning. You'll see that you're being unreasonable about this."

"Unreasonable? Unreasonable!" and it takes everything she has not to let her voice crack on that word. "You think I'm being unreasonable. I've spent my whole life trying to live up to your expectations of me and it's never enough. Nothing is ever going to be enough for you."

Her eyes take in the hard lines of his body, and she remembers the years of self-loathing because she was never what he wanted. The summers where he made her learn another language or take an extra class whilst Lucy was allowed to play with her friends or spend days at a time down the creek with the Potter children.

"So I give up," she breathes, fists clenched at her sides and voice rising as she continues, "I give up on you. You're not worth my time any more. I want to learn, so I will. Whether you approve of it or not."

"Molly. Molly where are you going!?" he shouts at her, calm pretence dispensed with because suddenly she's flying back through the house towards her bag and the door.

"As far away from here as I can get," Molly retorts angrily, and it's strange because being away from all of this for a year meant that she'd almost forgotten what anger felt like.

"Get back here right now, you're not leaving again!"

In the heat of the moment Percy reaches for his wand, and whilst he may have fought in a war where your wand was your lifeline, the speed of his draw is nothing compared to Molly's dragon-toned reflexes.

"Are you really going to stop me, Dad?" she asks him, the point of her wand tickling the flesh of his neck.

Percy takes the moment that her dragon-fire gaze is distracted from him, to take in the strength of her shoulders and the straight line of her back. The way she stands tall with confidence and chin jutted out with pride.

Lucy is pretty and fragile and charismatic and she'll draw people to her in a way that will let her dance through life and Percy has never had to worry about how difficult she'll find the future. So Audrey and he, they praised her and gave her what she needed to glow like starshine and never looked back.

Whereas Molly is clever and she sees the world that little bit differently to everyone else but she hides behind her searing wit and cool confidence, when in reality she's nothing more than a little girl trying to make it through. So Percy pushed her; harder than he ever pushed himself all those years ago when the badges glinting off his chest and his position in the Ministry meant more to him than the family he now would die for. After-all, more than anything he has ever known in his life, he knows that Molly has the potential to be so much more than everyone else, she just didn't know it.

Now though, standing there in front of him with her wand at his throat he can see everything in her that he always knew she was and where Lucy shines, Molly positively blazes. The brazen light in her eyes radiant because a year chasing dragons has made her strong and unafraid and finally comfortable with herself. She's mesmerising in a way he's never seen before and she just stands there all golden and invincible in front of him.

More than that though, he can feel the growl of the wand in her fingers and the way her magic ripples through her hair and he can't help but regret missing her grow up into this beautiful, spell-binding woman.

"I've earned this life," she tells him, voice quiet with rage. She shoulders her bag once more and lowers her wand and opens the door in one fluid motion, "so I'll damn well do what I want with it."

When the door shuts behind her all Percy can think is at least with Molly he did something right.

**fourteen**

She doesn't stop running until she has no idea what street she's on, and only then does she apparate, the address in her head before she's even really thought about it.

When Lily answers the door, all Molly can do is smile candidly, "I was wondering if you maybe needed a roommate. Not for long, you know, just a couple months, just so you're a little less lonely."

Lily looks at the bag under her arm, and the traces of anger in her face that are still slowly dissipating, and Molly wonders if the returning smile on her cousin's face isn't a little full of pride as she opens her door wider, gesturing Molly inside.

Molly isn't sure why she glances back as she's following the fiery head of hair in front of her, but she thinks that maybe the sight of the sun breaking through the cloud-clover and literally flooding everything in gold is the universe's way of telling her, as clichéd as it is, that maybe, just maybe everything gets better from this point on.

**fifteen **

She gets a ticket to watch him swim – she's just a masochist like that, and to be fair when they'd fallen onto the doormat with a little whooshing thud, she'd hidden them in a drawer where she could pretend they didn't exist. She doesn't mention them to Lily, because well, she's not stupid and Molly just knows where that conversation would lead and how full of words like 'stupid' and 'not worth it' and 'not ready' and 'not a good idea' it would be.

On the day of the race she waves goodbye to Lily, and as the door shuts she goes to sits on the window ledge in her room so that she can follow her cousin's progress to the alley down the side of the house where she can surreptitiously apparate to Central London. The ticket isn't forgotten, but she chooses to ignore it until the voice in her head makes a point of telling her that it's been over a year. Is she still so pathetic that she will let him have this much control over what she does? It's enough to spur her into action and in moments she's dressed, hair a burning trail behind her as she grabs the ticket and runs from the house.

_interlude_

Her seat is high at the back of the stands away from the watchful gaze of her family and friends who she can see spilling across the area dedicated to the athlete's closest supporters. The people around her tremble with excitement and the arena is loud and pressing as they wait for the highly anticipated final race of the night to start. When he finally comes into view, her breath catches a little in her throat and she berates herself for how pitiable she is until he enters the water, skin golden and body lean.

He wins, obviously, and she cheers along with the rest of them, because for a split-second it's like he's swimming in the lake again. The giant squid skimming lazily across the water by his side, and she remembers how it felt to fall in love with him. Remembers the elation and the giddiness, and how he made her feel like she was worth something more than her red-haired, blue-eyed, imperfect insignificance. Except, there's nothing more than that, it's only a memory, and a nice one at that.

She isn't aware of the competitors leaving the pool and it isn't until a kindly voice tells her she needs to vacate her seat that she realises quite how much time has passed. On her way out she slips into an empty bathroom, splashing water on her face, because she can't quite come to terms with the fact that maybe she's a little bit over him. Molly looks in the mirror at her own reflection, taking in the tan skin and subtle scars and she tries to align this person that she is now with the person she was then.

She remembers how that first time when she had accidentally whispered "I love you", and he'd just said "you too", she'd thought, this isn't my life, not my happily ever after, stuff like this doesn't happen to me. She remembers his touch and falling asleep with tangled fingers and the way he hurt her so much and made her feel like it was all her fault. She thinks about the way he broke her heart, and now looking in the mirror she wonders when the pain finally went away and why she didn't realise earlier.

Footsteps outside draw her attention, and with a last smile at her reflection she leaves the bathroom behind her, curiously following the footsteps through to a large set of double doors. There's a very large part of her that isn't surprised when she pushes them open to reveal the Olympic pool in the centre of the Aquatics Stadium she has only recently vacated. More than that though is how even less surprised she is to finally notice Lysander standing by the starting podiums clutching a pair of goggles he must have left behind in his earlier joy. His hair is hair is half wet, half dry and the odd droplet of water is still falling to stain the tracksuit he's wearing. His face is open and shocked and his eyes look at her in this odd mix of regret, pleasure, and if she's not mistaken desire.

Lysander stands there at a loss, clearly unsure what to do or say, and Molly is fully aware of what happened the last time they parted and how the memory of the words he used are playing across his features.

"Congratulations," she offers, voice a lot more sincere than she thought it would be, "you raced really well, and you deserved the win."

The gratitude on his face is palpable, "Oh thanks. I guess I'm a bit faster now than I was when we were at school".

She nods succinctly and surprises herself with her answer, the words flowing easily and truthfully, "Yeah well, you were always going to be good."

He laughs loud and bright, "You say that, but there were days when even my coach wasn't sure."

"Maybe he should have kidnapped the Giant Squid and made it chase you, you would've flown I'm sure," Molly teases smilingly.

The atmosphere between them is a fragile thing in its goodness, and Molly can feel, like she did when she spoke to her father, when Lysander is about to break it.

"So, how've you been? I hear you went to visit your Uncle?" the questions are light, a gesture of goodwill on his part, but they cling to Molly's heart, because as far as she's come, her time in Romania, sunlit days chasing dragons and laughing with her Uncle, are memories she holds close to her and she can't bear the idea of Lysander and his words and thoughts staining them.

"I've been good," she tells him vaguely, eyes alight with the remembrance of the sound of dragon wings on the breeze, "and yeah, I went to see Charlie, spent some time with him on the reservations, it was really good. I wasn't sure how long I was going to stay at first, but time just didn't seem to stay static, and then suddenly, hey look, a whole year gone in a heartbeat. Who knew."

"You were there the whole year?" he asks, confused, like this is something he never would have expected.

"Um, yeah, why?"

"No reason, I just figured maybe Charlie would have gotten bored having a teenager run around him all day. I mean a dragon reservation isn't exactly the smartest place to runaway to at eighteen is it?" he jokes, but they way he says it make it sound like she's a small child who got annoyed and hid at the end of the garden for several hours before returning, head hanging with shame, for tea. "But seriously, there are _dragons_, it's dangerous for a girl, there can't have been much for you to do, except maybe work in the infirmary, hell you always were amazing at spells."

Molly is stunned to listen to him speak like this, and it's only the pull in her hands that stops the volley of words she's about to throw at him. She is made of blood and human flesh and dragon fire and she will not fall to a boy like Lysander, she won't allow him to rule her like that.

Molly is indistinctly aware of the moment when Lysander notices the steel sharpening in her gaze and the way her chin is jutting out in that way it's started to do now, but suddenly he is in front of her, and his hands are resting on her shoulders.

"Look, I know it's been a year, and I know we didn't part...well the last time we saw each other, but we've both changed now, and I just –" his voice is soft as he breaks off.

Lysander bites his lip in that way beautiful people do, his eyelashes dark as he looks down, water dripping from his mussed up hair. He looks up at her finally and his blue eyes are dark.

"Molls, I am so sorry", he says quietly, eyes wide with wanting her back and it kills her.

His arrogance.

The fact that he honestly thinks that her name on his lips will make everything better. That an apology now will make her forget everything he did, the way he abandoned her when they fell apart. All the lessons that she should never have had to learn, especially from him.

Oh, how arrogant he is.

She stands there and looks at him and god, she has never been surer of anything in her life. He is a boy made of broken promises, and she hopes that he gets everything he ever wanted just so he can imagine what it would have been like to experience it with her.

His fingertips hover above her skin tracing the scars that mark her arms and hands and his eyes follow the curl of her hair down her back as it glances across the lithe curves that a year of chasing dragons has formed. She's taller somehow, spine straighter and chin higher and he'd call her something over-used and cliché like dragon-girl, except he doesn't think she's that sort of person anymore. She's more like a girl in a hurricane, tempting but perilous and he wonders how many more boys will have to learn to keep their distance or lose their hearts.

He tucks a curl behind her ear, the rough pads of his fingers settling feather-light on her cheek. Her breath comes in almost a half-gasp and he's so close that she can taste the chlorine-chocolate-mint of his breath. It's unusual the way she feels in that moment, because she doesn't love him and she's acutely aware that she is over how he hurt her, but still, she remembers all they could have been and a part of her wants him so badly, wants to smoulder and blaze with him again like they did when they were younger. Except she's seen firsthand how long the burns take to heal, and she'd rather hurt with dragons than with him. So she closes her eyes and pushes and he falls backwards in a flash of water.

She doesn't turn back to watch him surface, or see him blink the chlorine from his eyes. When she reaches the doors she doesn't see the way he watches her go, or the moment when he knows, realisation heavy in his veins, that this time, she's never coming back.

**sixteen**

Molly never talks to anyone about what happened between her and Lysander that night, after-all what happened between them has been a point of contention in their mixed and extended families, and it's not something she really feels the need to discuss.

Then again, the morning after the night before, she'd woken to Lysander's photo splashed across the front page of every major newspaper – and when she says photograph, she actually means him in mid-fall, face a picture of disbelief, as she is turning her back and walking away. Apparently Lysander wasn't the only person to forget something, and the reporter who had stuck around thinking he had discovered some sort of fairytale romance, had actually struck professional gold with a priceless shot of Lysander's rejection. Molly doesn't read the article, pointedly ignoring Lily's raised eyebrows when she enters the kitchen early that morning eyeing the paper strewn across their shared table. Nevertheless, she gets the idea that the reporter managed to also write a relatively accurate retelling of their conversation, which, well that's neither here nor there, as she is never formally named as Lysander's disgruntled lover – though admittedly when the news hits the Wizarding World, there was never any doubt. Unfortunately though the story had the side effect of completely over-shadowing Lysander's numerous Olympic successes, but that's something that Molly just can't bring herself to feel bad about.

Molly never mentions it to anyone though, but at the first family dinner she attends since before she left she can't help but notice the smiles the adults give her, like she's won the Triwizard Tournament or something. Or the way that Roxanne and Fred aren't quite able to cover up their smirks when Molly, all dressed in blue and looking every inch the Weasley girl she's never felt, walks passed them and ignores Lysander who they're standing with and the hopeless looks he sends after her.

Plus, well whenever she sees Lily, which is pretty much every day, she sometime catches her cousin looking at her with something like satisfaction and pleasure in those Slytherin green eyes of hers, and Molly finds herself unable to deny the fact that she's never felt happier.

**break**

Time ticks on though, and all she can think, all she can feel is excitement and trepidation and apprehension and hope and a thousand other emotions bubbling in her stomach, because the days are trickling through her fingers and she can finally admit that she made it.

Somehow, and she has no idea how, she survived.

* * *

**Zero**

She slides into the desk, cool oaken wood soft to her touch and when the lecturer finally speaks it feels like discovering magic all over again.

Halfway through, there's a flash of messy brown hair and blue eyes from somewhere across the other side of the theatre, but they're forgotten in a flurry of words, and knowledge, and long-awaited exultation.

**One**

She walks into him accidentally three and a half weeks later and he's nothing special. Wide blue eyes, brown curls and dimples, and okay, maybe he is something after-all. He stutters out an apology, hands fluttering uncertainly like he's inches away from checking to see if she's hurt and Molly can't help but think oh, wow.

"Hey" she smiles at him, eyes warm and gentle, "I'm Molly".

He smiles back tentatively at first, "Sam".

There's a shadow of a twinkle in his eye and suddenly Molly finds herself asking this boy she's never spoken to before if he wants to go for coffee or something, maybe. The surprise on his face is only a shade darker than her own and he starts babbling nervously, words pouring from his mouth like light from a star.

She laughs lightly at him and he pauses, face burning crimson, apology already replacing his chatter as he readies himself to flee.

She laughs again, and this time his eyes crinkle in delight, and she thinks he would be ever so easy to fall in love with.

Just give her time.

* * *

_a/n_: I would appreciate it so much if you reviewed. thankyou.


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